


Digging Six Feet Up

by SunriseinSpace



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: DEFINITE SPOILERS, Fix-it fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-14
Updated: 2012-05-14
Packaged: 2017-11-05 08:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/404404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunriseinSpace/pseuds/SunriseinSpace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve looks like someone's carved out his insides, hollow and pained and knowing, hands still raised in surrender.  He opens and closes his mouth a couple times, blue eyes dark and fathomless as he searches for words and Clint can't stand to meet that sincere gaze.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Digging Six Feet Up

"Clint?" Phil says, eyes dark and concerned, and Clint sways where he stands, knees this close to buckling.

"I--" he chokes out, staring. His head hurts, the migraine from Loki's meddling coming back with a vengeance, and his vision's starting to swim. His voice is caught in his throat, almost literally choking him as he struggles to catch his breath and Phil's just standing there, he's just standing there, why, isn't he--

"Clint, what's-- Phil," Natasha's voice says, uncharacteristically startled. Her hand lands on Clint's shoulder and there are clanking footsteps too heavy to just be hers behind him and Phil just staring, and it's too much.

Clint's eyes roll up in his head and his knees finally collapse just as bedlam breaks out behind him.

\--

"It's called a Life Model Decoy," Fury says, before Clint's even had a chance to open his eyes. He's not even entirely sure he's conscious at this point, but Fury's voice is there, to the left of the bed where Phil's supposed to be. Phil who's dead, except maybe not. "It's something Stark and SHIELD have been working on for a while now. Three were made for SHIELD before Loki's incursion; as of yesterday, only two remain." The meaning of what Fury's saying hangs heavy in the air.

"Did you know?" Clint rasps, sure he already knows the answer. He doesn't open his eyes.

"I suspected. I was rather busy at the time, though." The tone is mild, with a hint of reproach. Clint and Fury have had a long running understanding that Clint is allowed to question any and every decision made at SHIELD, except when Fury himself makes it. Usually Clint respects this; today he doesn't care.

"All due respect, sir, go to hell," he says softly, wincing as he curls over onto his side and drifts back into sleep.

\--

Three days and he's not avoiding Phil. It's not possible to, because the man's as stubborn and determined as Clint himself and always on the periphery of things. Wherever Hawkeye is, Agent Coulson is nearby, at the corner of Clint's vision.

Clint is making every effort to ignore Phil, though. It's not too difficult, what with the cleanup and evaluations and tests being thrown at him from every angle. The SHIELD psychiatrists keep asking to poke around in his head, not realizing that they're threatening as much damage as Loki ever did, and the WSC's investigators are questioning every action in the field. There are reports to file and experiments to be run and Clint is exhausted and Phil just won't go away.

"He's worried about you, you know," Natasha tells him one night, leaned nonchalantly in the doorway of Clint's quarters. The room is mostly bare, void of personality - he hardly spends any time here and most of his belongings have migrated over to Phil's apartment. Clint still can't face him yet, regardless of how juvenile he knows he's acting.

"Yeah, well, he shouldn't've played dead, then, should he?" he says, feet propped up on the headboard as he sprawled the wrong way across his bed and stares at the ceiling.

Natasha mutters something uncomplimentary in Russian and shakes her head. "I told Loki love is for children," she turns her back to the room, pausing in the door. "You're acting worse than a child, Clint; you're just being cruel because you're upset. Grow up," she pronounces and leaves.

He lies on the bed and stares at the ceiling until his eyes burn and his exhaustion drags him down like a weight.

\--

Two days later and Phil's still hovering, but somehow less so than before. His face has taken on a still, set cast, eyes dark and unreadable, but Clint tells himself it doesn't matter. Phil can't be hurt by how Clint's treating this when it's Phil's fault in the first place.

This time, it's Bruce that tries to make him see reason. Clint's taken to lounging in a corner of the lab at Stark Tower in his off-time, unable to stand the emptiness of his SHIELD quarters yet still unable to go home. Thor's back in Asgard, presumably dealing with Loki, who still deserves an arrow to the eye. The rest of the tower is relatively silent, meaning Stark's not home - Clint is definitely okay with that.

"Isn't the important thing that he's still alive?" Bruce asks, apropos of nothing. Clint looks up from the arrowhead he's been flipping over his knuckles. Bruce never raises his head from the microscope he's using, just continues on, voice mild. "I mean, if I'd lost someone that important, only to find it hadn't actually stuck? I wouldn't let any sort of distance build between us, no matter what or why."

"Even if they should have trusted you enough to tell you about the back up plan in the first place?" Clint asks, honestly curious despite his cruel tone.

Bruce does look up at that, eyes old and tired as they meet Clint's. "Did you," he starts, pausing to reconsider, "would you have wanted Loki to have that information?"

Clint has no response to that.

\--

Cap and Stark double-team him later that day, appearing out of nowhere as he turns a corner. There're still bruises on Stark's face, one eye slightly swollen and a gingerness to his step that says he's not as unscathed as he's trying to act. Steve's back in mint-condition, though, looking something like comfortable in plaid and khakis. Their eyes are very determined and something tells Clint he ought to be afraid.

"What the hell, Barton?" Stark demands, hands on his hips as he plants himself in the middle of the corridor. "Phil's alive, okay? He's alive and he misses you and he's sorry and do you know how I know all that?! Because his new best friend is my girlfriend, okay? And I really didn't need to know that much about Agent Coulson's love life! Also, it's upsetting Pepper, so could you, y'know, stop?"

Steve steps up behind Stark and puts a hand on his shoulder, looking vaguely amused despite serious eyes. "Down, boy," he says to Tony. His smile falls off his face as he looks back at Clint. "I had someone tell me once that I owed my friend the dignity of their choice, regardless of the outcome."

Clint stops, stares with frozen shock at Steve's earnest expression, and some barrier shatters.

"'The dignity of their choice'? 'Regardless of the outcome'?" he says, voice low and intense, gaining volume as he advances on Steve. Steve, who looks vaguely poleaxed at Clint's reaction to his words, backs down the hallway with his hands raised placatingly. "His _choice_ was to play around with experimental tech, against a demi-god with a murderous vendetta! And the _outcome_?" His hands are clenched into fists so tight they ache, his fingers white and bloodless with the pressure. He wants to shout, to rail at Rogers for saying that, to haul off and punch him for it. "The outcome is that, for approximately two hours, I got to think he was _dead_. I got to grieve him and the fact that I didn't get to see him one last time. I got to deal with knowing that the _one_ person in this entire _fucking_ organization that thinks I have what it takes to play superhero died because of _me_!"

He's panting at the end, up in Steve's face with the soldier pressed against a wall and Tony hovering worriedly off to the side. Steve looks like someone's carved out his insides, hollow and pained and knowing, hands still raised in surrender. He opens and closes his mouth a couple times, blue eyes dark and fathomless as he searches for words and Clint can't stand to meet that sincere gaze.

"It wasn't your--"

"He got it from _my_ head, Captain. Who and what and how and where and when. All the good grammar things that equal out to a concise, clear plan of action. And there was nothing I could do to stop him!" He shouts it at Steve, body thrumming with guilt and pain, and Steve looks half-way broken, unable to say anything because it's _true_.

"Barton," Stark says, hesitant as he lays a gentle hand on Clint's shoulder.

"Get out of my way," he growls, shoving past and taking off down the corridor, practically sprinting until he comes to where he knows a juncture in the ventilation system will hold his weight. He hoists himself into the ceiling and makes for his nest.

\--

He jerks out of uneasy sleep, the nightmare image of one of his arrows on a straight course to Phil's chest following him into consciousness. He sighs and rubs at his face, pressing into his eyes until the starbursts chase away the dream. Then he opens his eyes and nearly falls through the ceiling tiles.

"I decided you'd had enough time to be angry," Phil says mildly, body language closed off as he wraps his arms around his legs, curled up in a corner of Clint's space. He looks like hell, eyes bruised with exhaustion and suit uncharacteristically creased. There's a piece of insulation in his hair and Clint wants to brush it away, wants to comb his fingers through it and pull Phil into his arms. He sits on his hands, instead.

"I'm not angry," he argues. He's a lot of things, but he isn't just angry. It's not even the biggest part of what he feels.

"A week's worth of avoidance tactics and pouting would say otherwise." Phil tilts his head and smiles a little, mouth twisting wryly. He's not being Agent Coulson up here, just Phil, and that makes the tangle of emotion in Clint's gut squirm a little tighter. "Fury told you about the LMDs?"

Clint nods. He'd gotten the full run-down in a secure e-mail, with sources and files tagged from the mainframe. Even Stark had taken the time to detail the exact way the tech worked and why it's "death" has been so convincingly real. As far as he was concerned, it didn't matter.

"You were dead," he says, quiet, not able to look at Phil as he does. "Doesn't matter if you really weren't; far as I was concerned, you died."

"It was necessary," Phil starts, but Clint cuts him off.

"Bull _shit_. Putting me -- _us_ through that has never been and will never be necessary." His voice is hard, his eyes implacable - he will never not mean what he just said. "Regardless of the situation, _you are not expendable_."

They stare at each other in the semi-darkness, both worn and tired and missing the other. Then Phil smiles a little, shakes his head as he looks away.

"Would it help if I said I'm sorry?"

Clint seriously considers this - he's yet to allow Phil close enough to explain anything, let alone hear an apology from the man himself (Tony Stark's grumbling does not count). "Would you mean it?" he wonders aloud, trying to figure out his own mind, his self-imposed distance an ache in his chest.

Phil, always adept at reading Clint, moves to place himself closer, shoulder barely brushing Clint's as he settles in again. He sighs, scrubs a hand over his face. "If I had it to do over, I wouldn't change a thing." It's not an apology, but it's the closest Clint'll ever get. They're agents of SHIELD and sometimes this requires sacrifice, both permanent and not.

\--

They're in bed, in Phil's apartment, curled on their sides facing each other, breathing each other's air. And here, where it's quiet and he can hear each of Phil's breaths, can see the glow of streetlights at the tips of Phil's eyelashes, that's when his chest unclenches. That's when it all becomes real, when it's finally solid and tangible and Loki and his poisonous influence finally have left Clint's head.

That's when he finally breaks the surface and breathes in.


End file.
